Samurai warfare expert who makes a mean tiramisu, known to an ex-boss as The Volcano... is pagan Paolo football's pottiest man?

Wanted: one swanky new home for Paolo Di Canio, situated within a short commute of Sunderland’s Stadium of Light.

The property must have, first: walls thick enough to shield neighbours from the daily explosions of a man nicknamed ‘The Volcano’ by former manager Ron Atkinson on account of the fact that ‘he’s always liable to erupt’.

Second: a state-of-the-art kitchen suitable for this keen Italian chef, who makes a mean tiramisu but, in moments of high passion, has been known to impale family members between the shoulder blades with a barbecue fork.

Third: a library to house his extensive collection of books about Samurai warfare, along with a couple of historical hardbacks explaining why Benito Mussolini has, in Di Canio’s words, been ‘deeply misunderstood’.

Last (and here’s the clincher): a garden with space to build a large bonfire, ‘in the pagan tradition, with laurel branches,’ so that the occasionally-bearded, New Age resident can celebrate the summer solstice in two months’ time.

For the high-end estate agents who cater to Tyne and Wear’s football millionaires, it’s fair to say that Paolo Di Canio is not your average client. Then again, the mercurial 44-year-old isn’t exactly your average football manager, either.

Di Canio at the launch of his autobiography, Paolo Di Canio The Autobiography in 2000

His executive style has been described as ‘management by hand grenade’. His character was recently dubbed ‘more complex than the Sistine Chapel’. Harry Redknapp, his manager at West Ham, calls him simply ‘barmy’.

In Britain, Di Canio’s name has been a by-word for temper tantrums since the day, in 1998, when he shoved a Premier League referee in the chest, causing him (in the Italian’s words) to fall backwards ‘like a drunken clown’. The incident earned him an 11-match ban, a £10,000 fine, and instant notoriety.

‘Talk about people with short fuses — this guy hardly has any blue touchpaper at all,’ noted Atkinson, his manager at Sheffield Wednesday. ‘I have managed a few nutters in my time, but Di Canio takes the biscuit.’

You sure about that? Di Canio gets it all wrong as he signs for Charlton

Di Canio grabs Fulham's Barry Hayles by the throat in 2001.

That's pants! Di Canio on the front cover for a Marks & Spencer calendar in 2004 which raised cash for a male cancer charity.

And that's pants too! Di Canio waves to supporters after Lazio played Fiorentina in 2005.

Yet there is far, far more to the latest
recruit to the Premier League’s managerial merry-go-round than a big
mouth, a Latin temperament, and a penchant for bad behaviour. Just a few
years later, for example, this supposed ‘bad boy’ of British football
won FIFA’s annual ‘fair play’ award. The 2003 prize recognised an
incident against Everton when he picked up the ball, rather than kick it
into an unguarded net, so that an injured goalkeeper could receive
treatment.

Shove: Di Canio (left) walks off after pushing over referree Paul Alcock after he was given a red card

Such apparently glaring contradictions explain why Di Canio is often said to be ‘misunderstood’. But in fact that description is itself misleading — for it implies that this eccentric but hugely talented man can actually be understood.

Take, by way of another example, the kerfuffle that ensued late on Sunday night when relegation-threatened Sunderland announced their decision to appoint Di Canio to replace newly sacked Martin O’Neill as manager.

In a reaction that has transcended sport, the Labour politician David Miliband swiftly resigned from his £125,000, 15-day-per-year job as the club’s vice-chairman, citing what he called Di Canio’s ‘past political statements’.

It was a move that echoed the reaction of the GMB trade union in 2011 when Di Canio signed with Swindon — the union dropped its £4,000-a-year sponsorship of the club, citing his alleged right-wing views. But are these oh-so-principled Left-wingers right to demonise him? Certainly he would bitterly deny being racist.

Critics of Di Canio point to a notorious 2005 incident in Rome when he performed a one-armed salute to fans of his beloved Lazio after scoring a crucial goal in their derby against Roma.

The gesture sparked scrutiny of Di
Canio’s alleged links to far right elements within the ‘Irriducibili’,
Lazio’s notorious cabal of right-wing hooligan supporters.

It also raised questions about Di Canio’s autobiography, which included a passage discussing his interest in the Italian dictator Mussolini, who is referenced in the ‘DVX’ (Latin for ‘leader’, the title favoured by Mussolini) tattoo on his right arm.

‘I think he (Mussolini) was a deeply misunderstood individual,’ reads one section of the book. ‘He deceived people. His actions were often vile. But all this was motivated by a higher purpose. He was basically a very principled individual.’

The passage that quote came from was generally condemnatory about Mussolini, who, Di Canio added, had ‘compromised his ethics’ and ‘turned against his sense of right and wrong’ after the early stages of his career.

But context counts for nothing in the throes of a public witch-hunt.

Di Canio takes his first steps into management in May 2011 at Swindon

Di Canio celebrates Swindon's promotion from League Two in 2012

In an interview with the Ansa news agency, Di Canio attempted to explain his complex politics following the 2005 incident, saying: ‘I am a fascist, not a racist.’

‘I made the Roman salute because it’s a salute from a comrade to his comrades and was meant for my people,’ he added. ‘With this stiff arm I do not want to incite violence or racial hatred.’

He's all the fashion in a Union Flag jumper at West Ham

He also claimed, rightly, to have long railed against racism in columns for the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport, and have taken a public stand (at Celtic in the 1990s) against the club’s sectarian rivalry with Rangers. ‘Hatred can be good, but don’t hate someone just because they’re Protestant,’ he told Scottish fans.

Those explanations didn’t wash with Jewish groups, or anti-racism campaigners at the time, however. So we can hardly be surprised Miliband has now decided to follow their lead.

Friends: Charlton manager Chris Powell

In a statement, Di Canio claimed that
his own political opinions have been taken out of context ‘for media
convenience’. He added that some of his best friends in football are
black, including former team-mates Chris Powell and Trevor Sinclair.

A knack for ruffling feathers has certainly been part of Di Canio’s make-up since long before he was in the public eye.

He grew up in Quarticciolo, a working-class area of Rome, in a family so poor that he shared a bed with Antonio, his oldest brother. ‘When I needed to go to the bathroom, I simply wouldn’t,’ he once said. ‘Bed-wetting is something I had to deal with till I was 10 or 11.’

It’s hardly surprising that he became an occasionally nervous character, has seen psychiatrists for anxiety, and is terrified of flying.

Spotted by the local side Lazio as a teenager, Di Canio became a star of their youth team in the early 1980s while simultaneously spending weekends watching first-team games with the Irriducibili.

‘I’ve had bricks thrown at me by opposing fans,’ he has recalled of those years. ‘I’ve been tear-gassed and beaten by police.’

Perhaps as a result, he’s always seen football as an extension of warfare, and famously once kept a Lazio team-mate awake all night, on the eve of a crucial derby match, by playing the DVD of Braveheart on constant loop.

Best friends: Paolo Di Canio says Trevor Sinclair was a great companion during his time at West Ham

Commitment also made him a natural leader. Five managers appointed him captain, during a 20-year professional career that began in 1985 and saw him play for Lazio, AC Milan, Napoli, Celtic, Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham and Charlton.

But colleagues fell foul of him at their peril. He once threatened to kill Rangers player Ian Ferguson. And when former England manager Fabio Capello was Di Canio’s boss at AC Milan, the pair became involved in a punch-up. ‘I pushed him and he lost his balance. He fell over a bag. I’d been challenging his decisions,’ Di Canio said. ‘I understand his point of view better now. I was young.’

In another incident he became involved in an argument with Lazio chairman Claudio Lotito over dinner.

Di Canio celebrates beating Brad Friedel in 2003

‘Inside the restaurant I feel my
anger rising,’ he recalls in his autobiography. ‘I start to scream like a
madman. I turn the buffet table over. I start throwing things. The room
is full of flying objects: plates, bottles and forks. Everything is
flying; anything I can lay my hands on, I throw.’

The combustible nature, and knack of upsetting superiors, perhaps explains why he was never selected for Italy.

Back in the day: Di Canio at Lazio in 1985 (left, top centre) and with his wife and daughter (right)

After his playing days ended, he moved into management, securing his first job with (then) League Two Swindon in 2011 after an interview with the board that was so enthusiastic he allegedly burst the buttons on his shirt.

He moved to the nearby village of Ramsbury, leaving his wife Elizabetta back home in Italy overseeing younger daughter Lucrezia’s schooling (his elder, Ludovica, is at Southampton University studying medicine).

The new home was near Stonehenge, a setting that awakened his New Age beliefs.

‘I believe in nature. I believe in earth, sun, fire, and water,’ Di Canio recently said. ‘I love to visit Stonehenge. (I love) the idea that around 3,500 years ago there were these people with their connection between earth and heaven. And that community came together at the solstice.’

On the field, his reign was less happy-clappy. There were public confrontations with players, including an on-field altercation with striker Leon Clarke. After a 1-1 draw with Hartlepool, he called his entire side ‘stupid donkeys’.

All smiles with ref Uriah Rennie

But Swindon were promoted in 2012, at the end of his first season, and were just three points from the top of the league in February, when Di Canio walked out after a dispute over the sale of star winger Matt Ritchie.

Days after he quit, the club were forced to change the locks at the stadium after Di Canio was caught on CCTV breaking in, under cover of darkness, to forcibly remove mementos of his time in charge, including photos which were torn from the walls.

Despite that wrinkle, he is warmly remembered by the club, whose former chairman Jeremy Wray described the Di Canio reign as ‘pure box office’.

Whatever now happens on the field, his reign at Sunderland seems unlikely to be much different.